Saturday 10 May 2014

A Tiny Simca (1/35)

A steady stream of 1:35 kits of civilian cars have been arriving on the market lately. Made by the same companies that usually do kits of Tiger-tanks and other military hardware. The civilian cars are very useful on a model railway like mine. The car now on my worktable is the little Simca 5 from Tamiya.



The Simca 5 was designed in Italy by Fiat and produced at the Simca plant in Nanterre, France from 1936. It was a tiny car designed for the ordinary family (like the German Volkswagen) and able to travel 110 km on just 5 litres of fuel. The last Simca 5's left the assembly lines in 1949. In Nystrup the Simca is owned by the accountant of the gravel company.

The Tamiya kit is a great little kit and with only 57 parts the car is quite a fast project - see here for a review. Contrary to a company like ICM (I have built their kit of the Opel Kapitän) that designs kits with countless tiny parts and akward assemblies, Tamiya uses a different approach with few, well designed parts that assembles with ease. For a 1:35 railway modeller that needs a nice little civilian car and doesn't fancy fiddling with a kit with myriads of small parts, the Tamiya Simca is an obvious choice. Notice that Bronco has also made a kit of a the Fiat-version of the same design. With a lot more parts.


50 parts reduced to 8 waiting to be primed. The seven clear parts are still in their plastic bag. I did the assembly in about one hour.

Painting is progressing. A briefcase and a suitcase has joined the other parts. I have searched the internet to find a good colour for my model. I'm currently trying to decide between blue and green.
Because I'm modelling in 1:35 I can model Nystrup's local fire brigade's Mercedes fire engine (made by two companies: ICM or MiniArt), an Opel bus is announced from Roden and an American Packham should be on its way from ICM. What I would really wish for was a little post war British car like the Morris Minor.

2 comments:

  1. What era is your railway depicting, the Landrover Series 3 is done by Revell - but this is one, not a car, and two, quite a late prototype (new in 1971 I think).

    A quick eBay:
    German staff car...
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Revell-German-Staff-Car-Admiral-Cabrio-1-35th-Scale-Plastic-Kit-03099-/140785062971?pt=UK_ToysGames_ModelKits_ModelKits_JN&hash=item20c771943b

    A Citroen...
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35301-TAMIYA-CITROEN-TRACTION-IICV-STAFF-CAR-1-35th-PLASTIC-KIT-1-35-MILITARY-/350935279250?pt=UK_ToysGames_ModelKits_ModelKits_JN&hash=item51b55f6692

    Austin van...
    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/35308-TAMIYA-AUSTIN-TILLY-UTILITY-CAR-1-35th-PLASTIC-KIT-1-35-MILITARY-/350935279246?pt=UK_ToysGames_ModelKits_ModelKits_JN&hash=item51b55f668e

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    1. Hi James
      Thanks for the links. The era on my little railway is early to mid 1950´s. It is not enforced strict, so I have some flexibility. But not as much as to allow a Series 3 Landy. I've got the Tamiya kit of the Citroen Avant (unbuilt) and the same car in resin by DES Kits (built).

      Hope to see even more 1:35 cars before long. I've heard that there is also a Renault lorry coming.

      Thanks again for your comments.

      Claus

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